They Want to Silence You

In Friday's New York Times, economist Paul Krugman took some nasty shots at me, Bill O'Reilly and other commentators, saying: "For the most part, the likes of FOX News and the RNC haven't directly incited violence," which suggests in a small part we have.

He also said: "And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased."

He just linked conservatives to conspiracy theorists.

In other words, this is not attacking just me, it's attacking you — because if you're a conservative, you're a crazy person.

Here's the one thing: If offering opinions on the news can be linked to hate and extremism, then Krugman should be in the cell right next to me.

For years Krugman has spoken in drastic terms about the grave danger posed by global warming.

On October 15, 2007, he wrote in his New York Times column: "It's in the interest of most people (and especially their descendants) that somebody do something to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, but each individual would like that somebody to be somebody else. Leave it up to the free market, and in a few generations Florida will be underwater."

Why isn't Krugman blamed every time there's a bombing by the Earth Liberation Front? Why isn't he responsible for ELF's 2,000 acts of arson, fire bombings, vandalism, intimidation, assault, stalking and $110 million worth of property damage all done in the name of protecting the environment?

Why isn't he responsible for people who chain themselves to redwood trees or who vandalize big SUVs? Aren't those people just "doing something" to promote their cause, just like Krugman suggested or, I believe, incited.

By the way, ELF and ALF, the top domestic terrorists, are both surprisingly on the left.

Then there are his statements on the Iraq war and torture. In October 2006, Krugman wrote: "Iraq is a lost cause. It's just a matter of arithmetic… American forces there are large enough to suffer terrible losses, but far too small to stabilize the country."

Isn't he inciting Iraqi suicide bombers to target our troops? After all, he told them that they were close to winning the war, that we were in a "lost cause."

When you combine that with this line from earlier this year: "There is now no way to view the people who ruled us these past eight years as anything but monsters," you realize that Krugman is also obviously responsible for the killing of an Army recruiter about a week ago in Arkansas.

The Muslim convert who did it said he was opposed to the U.S. military and how can you blame him considering that their commander in chief for the last eight years was a "monster"?

Of course, all of this is ridiculous. No rational person would ever blame Paul Krugman for environmental attacks, suicide bombings or murders of soldiers. Yet that's exactly what Krugman and others are trying to do to those on the right, linking commentators like me and Bill O'Reilly to the murder of late-term abortion Dr. George Tiller and the shooting by a white supremacist at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

I can sum up the only ones responsible in one sentence: Crazy people are just crazy people.

For those who refuse to listen to what I actually say, I'll say it again: Anyone who thinks violence is the way to get their message across is a nut-job who is discrediting their own cause.

But recognize this for what it is: This is an attempt to shut you up, not me.

Yes, crazies are acting out. But you need the rest to differentiate from the crazies, because if they don't, we'll find ourselves in a box that Americans have never been in.